


To Change a Leopard's Spots

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [21]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-05 06:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: A simple locked door can very rarely provide a challenge for the Doctor. A highly complicated locked door can be much more difficult, especially when he has no idea what - or who - is on the other side.





	To Change a Leopard's Spots

The Doctor’s screwdriver buzzed as he waved it at the door in front of him. Several of the locks keeping it shut popped open, but most of them stayed firmly closed, and when he intensified the effect of the screwdriver, it sparked and fed back and he put it away, noting that it wasn’t going to work.

“Deadlocked, I should guess,” he muttered to himself. “I really must catch up with Arthur, ask him how to open them.”

He made a mental note to follow up on his idea that he would most certainly forget quite shortly, before turning his attention back to the door, deciding that his musings on the subject were not helping him at the moment. Most of the locks he had already deactivated had been simple: turn the key and open. He examined the remaining locks, deciding one type at a time to open would be the easiest way.

He decided to start with the multiple numerical keypads. They were quite simple to solve. The Doctor reached inside one of the pockets lining the inside of his coat and rummaged around for a few seconds, removing his hand to find he had not retrieved what he was looking for. He went back in and continued to search for a couple of minutes, messing up the meticulously organised arrangement of objects he didn’t remember making, before coming to the conclusion that what he was looking for was not in that pocket. He reached into the opposite pocket and immediately found the magnifying glass he had been searching for.

One by one he used the magnifying glass to closely peruse each keypad in turn, looking at each number key to see which had faded from use, and deriving the correct passcode from the severity of how faded each key was. As distracted as the Doctor could often get in his tangents and name dropping, a trait that Harry Houdini had once told him was irritating and took focus away from what he was doing at any given moment, which the Doctor had thought was rather unfair because he considered his anecdotes to be quite entertaining, he always prided himself on having a good eye for detail.

Once he was finished with the keypads, he moved onto the key locks that had not been opened by his screwdriver. These would prove more tricky, he thought initially, but then remembered a particular gadget his hand had brushed past while fruitlessly searching through his other pocket. He quickly retrieved the small metal cylinder and held it up to the first lock, pressing in the button on the end that ejected a viscous liquid that formed into the shape required by the lock to turn properly. Once it had finished forming, the liquid solidified, and the Doctor turned the key. Once the key was unlocked, he pushed the button again, and the key liquified again and was drawn back into the cylinder. He repeated the process for each lock, having trouble with one or two because they had been rusted shut, preventing the lock from turning properly, but nothing that couldn’t be solved with a cotton bud and some window cleaner. The Doctor didn’t remember why the window cleaner was in his coat, but he was thankful for its presence nonetheless.

Once those locks had been dealt with, the Doctor turned his attention to the large fingerprint scanner in the middle of the door. This would be the hardest to deal with, he suspected. He looked around the room for anything that might have been touched by someone who would have access to the other side of the door. Nothing, the room was almost entirely bare. There were tables and a few chairs, but only one door besides the locked one he was trying to break into, and nothing adorning any of the tables. The Doctor was in the middle of pondering whether or not anyone would have rested their hands upon the tables, when the solution hit him: he had entered the room, but had not left it; whoever last left the room would have access to the other side of the door, and would have left their fingerprints on the door handle. Retrieving a convenient roll of extra wide sticky tape from inside yet another jacket pocket, he wrapped some around the door handle, and using a particularly focused setting on his screwdriver, cut out the fingerprints impressed on the tape, using them on the fingerprint scanner.

Finally, the door clicked multiple very loud times before falling silent. A small hatch opened in the door near the Doctor’s right hand and a handle slid out. The Doctor used his screwdriver to scan for any more traps and, detecting none, turned the handle, opening the door and stepping through into the room on the other side.

“Ah. Well, this is a little embarrassing.”

The figure stood from his metal chair in the centre of the room, straightening out his navy tailcoat and faced the Doctor, gloved hands behind his back. His white shirt matched his white breeches and his black leather boots reached just below his knees, and his dark red belt matched his dark red stock tie. His short black hair was combed neatly to a side parting and barely seemed to move as he stood up. He stood straight, and he stood taller than the Doctor, feet facing forward, holding his head tilted slightly downwards to meet the Doctor’s gaze, nary a twitch nor an errant blink breaking the image. He appeared a paragon of dignity before the Doctor.

“Oh. Um, hello,” the Doctor greeted him.

“Greetings, my old friend,” the man replied warmly, his voice controlled and proud but not arrogant or superior. The Doctor took an immediate liking to his voice.

“Do I know you?” the Doctor asked, too taken aback to display any sort of tact.

“Yes, yes you do,” the man answered, thankfully unoffended by the Doctor’s lack of recognition. “Although I suppose this is mostly likely the first time you’ve seen me like this.”

“I presume it was you who sent the distress signal I picked up?” the Doctor investigated further.

“Indeed it was,” the man responded, still standing just as tall, and though pacing slightly so as to not look like a statue, had not removed his hands from behind his back. “Alas, there was not a great deal I could do to escape this current predicament. Given the resources of my previous incarnation I am sure I could have escaped with minimal difficulty, but given the fact that my Time Ring was damaged in my regeneration, I found myself somewhat unable to leave this place and return to my TARDIS, or do much at all beyond send out a distress signal. One that, thankfully, you received.”

“Time Ring?” the Doctor slowly put the pieces together in his head and realised who he had been speaking to. “I see. Hello, Rider.”

“Doctor,” the Rider returned the greeting. “You were expecting somebody else, I take it?”

The Doctor ignored the question. “Did you send for me specifically?”

“No,” the Rider admitted, “but even you must admit that if anyone was likely to find and act on a distress signal from a fellow Time Lord it was you. More particularly, _this_ you.”

“I wouldn’t call you wrong,” the Doctor mused. “Is there any particular reason I shouldn’t just leave you here? You have caused me and a lot of others a great deal of grief in the past.”

“I assure you I am far from proud of...all of the actions of my previous incarnation,” the Rider attempted an apology. “I would request a fresh start, but I suppose we both know that isn’t how our people work.”

“Hmm,” the Doctor muttered by way of agreement. His people had a habit of holding him accountable for actions that had long since stopped being problems. “I guess you - _this_ you at least - haven’t caused any problems yet.”

“Why, thank you, Doctor,” the Rider smiled. A genuine smile that lit up his stern but not unwelcoming face. The Doctor got the distinct impression that he was going to like this incarnation a lot more than the previous one. He moved to exit the room, walking past the Doctor.

“Oh, one question Rider,” the Doctor called him to stop. “Why were you here anyway? What is this room?”

“Oh, that’s quite simple,” the Rider said with another smile. “I assassinated the Prime Minister.”

The Doctor’s expression turned cold.

“Yes, events were becoming quite unbearably dull under his administration,” the Rider continued, smile not fading. “Unfortunately I was captured due to my unwise reliance on my Time Ring, until you rescued me. This is a cell, didn’t you know? The occupant is due to be executed by disintegration in, oh, maybe 3 minutes. Oh, on that note.”

Before the Doctor could even move, the Rider dashed deceptively quickly out of the room, pressing a button on the door which slammed shut and clicked many times as the locks all shut at once trapping the Doctor in the room.

“What?” the Doctor gaped. “But...you!”

“Thank you once again for the rescue, Doctor!” the Rider called through the door. “They’ll get suspicious if there isn’t a body left over. I much appreciate the offer to stand in for me!” The Doctor heard him walk away from the door.

The Doctor sighed and sat down in the chair as he felt the room start to heat up.

“I suppose expecting a total personality adjustment during a regeneration was a little too optimistic,” he said to nobody as he started to replay Houdini’s lessons in his mind.


End file.
